The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1887-05-19
YOUTHFUL CRIMINALS.

YOUTHFUL CRIMINALS.
Governor Taylor, the newly elected
governor of Tennessee, if correctly re-
ported, takes his state to task for not
having established house of correction
for children under seventeen years of
age, and says he is having list of all
such children now imprisoned made out,
and that he will pardon them, and adds:
"They, nor any other child, shall stay
there while am governor of Tennessee"
His action Is based on the manifestly i'm
polite practice of combining these youth
full offenders with hardened criminals of
the worst class, such commingling being
equivalent to founding school of crime
for these youngsters, who are generally
only guilty of some petty offense, rather
the result of youthful ignorance and in
discretion, or the influence of their elders
than because of innate devilish desires of
their own. 1t is palpably evident that
such characters should be kept from con-
tact with prisoners of more mature age,
that they should be confined, but confined
by themselves. For even in crime there
is emulation, and with children of these ten
der years, when thrown among murderers
and the vilest offal of society, though at
first they may shrink with disgust and
terror from contact with such reckless
and sin-dyed creatures, yet in time they
listen to the tales of crime that go the
rounds, and, living in an atmos phere of
evil, the fear of these men gives place to
interest in the thrilling scenes of their
crimes and facination for their life of ex-
citement, and blushing for the trivial cause
of their incarceration, in lying boast they
ape the airs of their elders, invent for
themselves a past of crime and try to
cultivate characters like those around
them. All this is too true to be aues-
toned. But is this evil of gravity suf-
ficient to make it necessary or expedient
for Governor Taylor to adopt for its es-
cape course so dangerous, so probably
fruitful of injury to the state, and such a
license to the criminally inclined youth of
the state? For in every community, every
state, there is class of young vagabonds,
reared in homes of vice, or brought up
on the street and under the influences of
the widest and most uncontrolled kind of
life, who naturally and from inclination
turn to crime. To them it is a second ex-
istence. 1t will not do to let these little
vampires prey upon society; they must be
checked by the fear of punishment and
restraint. In the interest of the unfortu-
nately and even innocently guilty of their
class, license and liberty must not be
granted these idle and reckless ones, who
would, in this very immunity, find occasion
for greater mischief and graver offenses.
In theory Governor Taylor is correct. 1t
is wrong to house these children of seven
teen years and younger with har-
dened criminals; but it is worse
to turn them loose upon society
and in this way encourage vice.
1t would be cheaper for Tennes see
to build all over her state, houses of cor
rection for this class of evil doors; and, in
the interest of efficient government, vir
tuous living and a proper regard for the
good youth of the land, who need this
warning and who deserve that this dis
tinction between guilt and innocence
shall be made, the only course left open
to Tennessee, is to do as Texas and other
progressive states are doing establish
houses for the combining and correction of
their hayward youth.